


A Man's Worth

by Raine_Wynd



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Dark, Gen, PTSD, Raleigh is not a happy guy here, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-23
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-16 16:46:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1354519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raine_Wynd/pseuds/Raine_Wynd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If there had been four days between his arrival and the Double Event, just how convinced Raleigh would be that he wasn’t good enough?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Man's Worth

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a happy fic, but it has hope at the end. I realized that if Raleigh had had five years to contemplate his service, and Stacker convinces him to go based on asking him where he'd rather die, Raleigh would likely not be in a happy head space if he fails to connect with someone on his first day of candidate trials. As for Herc - he may not win the award for being a great dad, but I rather suspect he'd be an awesome second-in-command, the guy to whom Stacker delegates the "make sure the troops are okay and ready" kind of thing because, as a fixed point, Stacker can't show weakness. Hope you like this!

From his vantage point in the doorway, Herc watched as Raleigh worked out his frustrations at the first set of Drift candidates with a punishing set of pushups, as if he blamed himself for the failure to connect. As Stacker’s 2IC, Herc knew that Raleigh had been diagnosed with PTSD before being discharged from the PPDC. As a jaeger pilot who’d had his own taste of a broken neural drift, Herc understood what it felt like to feel like he hadn’t done enough.

“Not your fault, Raleigh,” Herc said, breaking the silence as he stepped into the kwoon. “You only need to match with one out of fifty. You beating fifteen on the first day is not a bad thing.”

Raleigh jackknifed to a standing position, clearly caught off guard. “Sir,” he said crisply.

“Cut that shit out,” Herc told him, smiling. “It’s just you and me here. Nobody can match what you had with your brother. You might find somebody better; you might find somebody a little worse, but what matters is if you can drift and you can fight together. Kwoon matches are just a way to see if you can even talk, so you don’t go through the shit Stacker and I went through, when they’d hook us up randomly with strangers to see who’d stick and who’d fall out.”

“I know that, sir,” Raleigh said, and at Herc’s glare, amended to, “Herc. But – it’s not my imagination, is it? I know I’m rusty, but that group felt like – like someone hated me for being their ticket into a jaeger.”

Herc sighed. He’d watched the fights; seen how rough the conversations had been. “You’re not wrong. This is the last group of Jaeger Academy graduates; they graduated in time to learn that none of them were getting a jaeger because the funding had been cut.”

Raleigh sagged a little at that. “Maybe I should’ve stayed where I was.”

“And hated yourself even more for not coming?” Herc shot back. “Maybe even accidentally fallen off a beam?”

Raleigh jerked at that. “I wouldn’t.”

“Not deliberately,” Herc agreed. “Subconsciously? Maybe. Contrary to what you might’ve been told, you’re not the only jaeger pilot around with someone else’s brain permanently attached. I have echoes of all the people I drifted with; Chuck hates it.”

Raleigh winced sympathetically. 

“You’ll find someone,” Herc assured him.

Raleigh sighed. For a moment, he looked as though he was going to say something more, then changed his mind. “Yeah, I’m sure the marshal’s planned it out so someone will be willing, even if we’re not completely compatible. Any warm body ought to be good enough, right?”

“Raleigh –“ Herc began, hating the resignation he saw and heard.

Raleigh shook his head. “It’s okay, Herc. If it comes to it, I can probably pilot Gipsy myself again. Be worth dying for, if I helped save the world.” He gave Herc a bitter half-smile. “Thanks for the pep talk, but I know my worth here. I should go clean up and get some rest – didn’t sleep much last night. Excuse me.” Raleigh didn’t wait to be dismissed before leaving; he paused only to pick up the small bag he’d been issued that contained his street clothes.

Herc watched him leave, too vividly aware of both Stacker’s plans and the medical discharge that had labeled Raleigh too mentally unstable to pilot. Herc had been furious to discover that one of the program’s best pilots had been given a diagnosis, a discharge, and the promise of support only if he allowed himself to become a lab rat. Raleigh had left rather than let himself be studied; he’d quickly disappeared off the grid. The first time anyone knew he was still alive was two and half years later, when a sharp-eyed newsman had spied him in Fairbanks, working on the docks.

Herc didn’t like this older Raleigh Becket. He remembered the charming, eager, enthusiastic young man who’d been one half of a cocky, inventive, and brilliantly matched pair of jaeger pilots. This Raleigh – resigned, bitter, fatalistic, and certain he was only one step above a warm body for the fact he could pilot – didn’t feel right. Men like that tended to become self-fulfilling prophecies. Eyes narrowing, Herc headed to talk to his old friend about switching up the candidates – and to see if the Kaidanovskys were willing to convince Raleigh that he was worth more than just cannon fodder. The Russians were ruthlessly practical, but they’d expressed interest in getting to know the American – and Herc did not need to know any further details than that. Herc had no doubt they’d do wonders for Raleigh’s ego if nothing else, whether it was through sparring or something more intimate.

The kaiju were only getting tougher to kill; Herc saw no reason to give them any room to take down another jaeger pilot.


End file.
